CJK Unified Ideograph-5000

It means a wild or bewildered person; later, a tiger-bound ghost.

The Eastern-Han 說文解字 analyzes 倀 as 人 plus sound-bearing 長 and glosses it 狂也, wild or mad. So its earliest clear job was describing behavior, not tigers. Later dictionaries keep 倀倀 for being lost or unsure what to do.

Ancient-form records place 倀 among Chu bamboo-and-silk manuscripts, without a securely dated single specimen. Think in three layers: an early manuscript form, an Eastern-Han dictionary explanation, then a later folklore sense. 倀 origin is evolution, not invention.

Why does 倀 mean a tiger ghost?

The tiger-ghost sense grew from Tang-era folklore.

A Tang-era story, preserved in the Song-period Taiping Guangji and linked to Pei Xing Chuanqi, says a tiger victim becomes its compelled guide, clearing traps and luring new victims. In modern Chinese, 為虎作倀 turns that plot into a moral charge: helping an evildoer do harm.

Is 倀 the same as 伥?

Yes: 伥 is the simplified form of 倀.

They are script variants, not rival definitions. The right-hand 長 also puts 倀 in a historical sound series with 張, 帳, and 脹; that explains the chāng pattern, not a shared meaning.